Chinese Junk

No, not the boats that toll the rivers of China. I'm talking about scooters.

But Chinese Junk a misnomer. When you consider that America is the worlds largest manufacture of cars and China is the world leader in Scooters you also must consider that they can't be junk if they are that big an industry. Chinese quality control leaves something to be desired. But the biggest problem we had was the bad, bad customer service from the company we bought them from. They are the Scooter Depot and they are big in California as well as online. And my guess is if you lived near them or in CA you would not have the problems we had. No there is no lemon law in CA for motorcycles and don't believe the hype about customer service on their website.

There were several problems I had with putting together the final parts. especially with a few missing. Also two left side rear view mirrows. But the biggest problem was the leaks. I filled both bikes with gas and we rode them around awhile. Testing and learning. that night, while trying to sleep we noticed the slight smell of fuel. Closed our window and it was eliminated. The next morning when we went to start the scooters we noticed the fuel was low on one and empty on the other. At any rate I added fuel to what is suppose to be mine and took it for a spin down the road. I didn't go far, since we didn't have licenses and when I gazed at the gas gage it was almost on empty again. With a turn around and hope, hope I could make it back without having to push it, I returned to camp.

I set the bike on the kick stand and watched the high priced precious fuel seep into the ground from whence it came. In a raw form that is. Pat's bike looked OK but we later found out it was leaking also. Not being mechanics we called the company and tried to find out what was happening. An exchange of a dozen emails, a couple of weeks and several phone calls and they never were able to address the problem. About half my emails went unanswered.

We later, after having gotten the trailer, took the bikes to Pensacola for repair. No one wants to work on Chinese bikes because it is supposedly hard to get parts and if they are a dealer in Chinese manufactured bikes they don't want to accommodate anyone who has bought online.

To make a long story short the repair shop in Pensacola did an initial set up on the bikes and we were off to the races. So we thought. When we put them on the trailer one started to leak again. So with a bottle of carburetor cleaner, free, and the instructions on running them until they clear up we took of again. We already lost a whole week in scheduling the bike class and was coming up short on the next class. Our deposit was already in and we only had one day before the class.

In short we took leaking bikes to class and discovered that if you put the bikes on the center stand they didn't leak. If you put them on the kick stand wherein the bike would be leaning to one side they bleed their precious fuel and our money. We spent twenty dollars on gas during the training session and only rode them for about twenty miles together.

Needless to say we still have two leaky scooters but my last phone call to the company was not nicely minced words and I requested to speak to an owner or manager. I expressed my disdain with there customer service. Apparently they are sending two new carburetors.